Daily Search Forum Recap: May 5, 2008

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google Improves Semantic Search
A Google Groups member notes that Google seems to be able to stem complex plurals as of late and accurate suffixes. For example, if you search for "accredit" or "accrediting," you will see "accreditation" highlighted as well. Forum members also observe that Google is "capable of ranking on synonyms now" from an example posed by a user who said that Google is highlighting phrases that is are not at all tied to the on-page text.

Webmasters Report May 2008 Google SERP Updates
This month, WebmasterWorld members have observed the same old shuffle in rankings that plagued webmasters in our April 2008 Google SERP Update post. A lot of rankings are dropping, and one webmaster even reports that he's hit a new traffic low in 2008. One member likens these drops to the fact that Google might want to emphasize their paid listings. Looks to me that at this stage of the game where Google completely dominates the

The Importance of a #1 Google Ranking
Aaron Wall recently wrote a brilliant piece about the value of a #1 Google ranking. In his in-depth article, which is divided into 9 sections, he explains based on research and a variety of forum discussion that even small declines in ranking can break businesses. He goes on to explain the value of these rankings in financial terms, and explains how you can determine the value of your own rankings in 6 steps: Establishing a

Google Basically Admits to Minus 60 Penalty
Remember when I reported that we saw Google Sitelinks in position 60? I said then that it seems Google is admitting to the minus 60 penalty: What I do find very interesting is that Googler, JohnMu, tells the webmaster to look at the -60 penalty Google Groups thread. Does he mean to imply that some sites with the -60 penalty, that deserve a number one position, will see Sitelinks in position 60, in these cases?

Poll: Can A Competitor Hurt Your Google Rankings with Links?
Forums have been buzzing and buzzing about the possibility of a competitor being able to hurt your Google ranking for the past few years now. We have covered this topic time and time again, just see here for some of the many times we covered it. In fact, we even covered a thread that listed how to penalize your competitors in Google. I thought it would be fun to see if you guys believe it.

Part Of Your Site Needs a Google Review? You Need To Verify That Section With Google Separately
Let's say, you have a subfolder on your domain that gets hacked. The hack causes your subfolder to be penalized by Google, due to the hack. Did you know that in order to issue a request for a review from Google in Webmaster Tools, you will need to individually submit and verify that subfolder to Google Webmaster Tools - even if you have the main domain listed and verified in Webmaster Tools? A Google Groups

Google Finally Begins Enforcing The Display URL Policy
Since early February we were warning Google AdWords advertisers that Google would be enforcing the display URL policy, where the display URL must match the destination URL. The policy enforcement was suppose to begin on April 1st. On April 10th, we asked why Google wasn't enforcing this new policy? But we had no answer. That all changed this weekend. A WebmasterWorld thread has reports from several AdWords advertisers reporting that Google has finally begun enforcing

Microsoft Backs Off Yahoo & Drops Offer
Over the weekend, Microsoft finally backed off Yahoo and has decided to pull their offer to buy Yahoo and also decided they would not pursue a hostile takeover of the company. That sums it up basically. Now, if you want to read more, let me send you to Search Engine Land where we covered the news extensively. Microsoft Yanks Its Offer For YahooLeaving Las Yahoo: Microsoft's $5 Billion Mistake?Yahoo Next Steps: Google Deal, AOL Purchase

Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: May 4, 2008
In closing out April and moving into May, we had a fairly slow week of search forum news. We discussed how Google leaked AdWords ranking scores, a Google PageRank update and a Sitelink update. We also saw how GoogleBot is crawling less, overall. Court ruled that META keywords are immaterial. Google launched TV ads to every US advertiser. Finally, we chatted about the search controversy between SES and SMX. Congrats to the winner of the